FG Reopens Abuja Airport Runway


The federal government has reopened the runway of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja for the landing of all kinds of aircraft.

The minister of state for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who stated this yesterday, while inspecting the airport, said the runway was opened after the successful completion of the renovation work that had been going on there.

While calling for the return of full business to the airport, the minister noted that with the completion of repairs in the airport, the runway was now open for any kind and size of aircraft to land.

He, however, lamented that the airport runways, which were constructed in 1982 and meant to last for 20 years, were over stretched, and emphasised the need for a second runway which would serve as alternative in the times of repair.

The minister, while speaking on the challenge of aviation fuel, noted that, “I’m sure you are aware that the country is in trying times and part of the challenges that affects aviation as an entity and a business, as a means of transportation is the recent challenge that we are having on aviation fuel popularly known as Jet A1.

“The minister of petroleum is here and he is making every effort and he is on his way to certain negotiations to ensure that the product is very much available for our country and for our use.

“I thank the president and the country for giving us the opportunity to head these aspects of our national calling and I thought it is wise to use this medium to appeal to users and operators within the industry for the situation we find ourselves in. It is not only squarely on the shoulders of the ministry petroleum, they are doing their best to discharge their responsibility but some of the challenges are also domiciled in Central

Bank of Nigeria for the scarcity of foreign exchange and that is also being addressed and the CBN governor is doing his best and what affects us also, we are doing our best.

On the way forward, the minister of state, petroleum, Ibe Kachukwu said, “like you know, we have substantially liberalised the sector and in fact, the importation of Jet A1s products are largely in the hands of the private sector, it is not really an NNPC driven thing but given the situation that we find ourselves, we are doing all that we can.

NNPC is doing all it can and the new GMD is working round the clock on this and I am doing all that I can to look at countries where there are immediate availability of JET A1 to just solve the intermittent problem.

“Long term obviously, we are also looking at repairing some of our Jet fuel producing facilities in the refinery and I know that the GD refining and the GMD are working hard to do this. We are trying to put funds to do that quickly but we should be able to try and get solution to this very quickly so that at least we can sort it out in the short term period while looking at the systemic issues of funding, logistics, and all that and seeing how that is impacting on private sector ability to deliver Jet fuel A1. So we are working collaboratively on this.”

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